Waterloo Animation Festival.
I did something fun this weekend! Some friends of mine always go to the Waterloo Animation Festival, and they invited marii_chan and I along for the ride. It was no Ottawa, but then what is, amiright?
Friday.
We had to be at Mellow's place for 4PM on Friday, so we could drive in for the first movie of the day at 6PM. Turns out we should have left the day before, or something, because traffic was amazingly bad. We wound up getting in at about seven thirty, so we completely missed Leafie, A Hen Into The Wild which is a kids film from Korea. It actually looks really neat, now that I see the trailer. Looks like it's 3D, but the way they've shaded it makes it look very 2D.
Trailer! The designs are actually really neat.
Instead of watching this film, then, we sat in traffic and went for Pho at Pho Dau Bo just down from the theatre. It was really quite good, and we almost all enjoyed our meals. marii_chan got a pile of shredded something that was supposed to be shredded pork, but was really odd. I had vermicelli with a spring roll and also meatballs, which turned out to be flat, which I found pretty funny.
After, we trucked back to the theatre for the second film of the night, El Sol. The film apparently had quite a journey to get to the festival, involving pulling the package off of one courier's plane to go on another courier's plane, and figuring out just where in the world it ended up before finally having it delivered to Mississauga and then driven over to the theatre. It wound up being about an hour late, and was it ever worth it!
The trailer is here.
As you can see, I'm lying. Apparently this film was made for 13 thousand dollars by an illustrator and a bunch of his friends, but it should be the example that starts a new saying: Friends don't let friends come up with ideas high. And then make them with no editing at all. Sigh.
It showed (apparently) a post apocalyptic society, twenty years after the bomb fell. The first shots included a DBZ look alike character, and then someone who looked like Ash from Pokemon. And then there was some sort of thing to show the death of democracy and government, because the last politician was shot by a PETA activist for daring to say that we should eat animals to survive.
Then it 'follows' the adventures of 'Once'. Not Once, as in a character name, but 'Once'. I assume in Spanish his name as ApostropheOnceApostrophe, because that's how it was always written in the subtitles. He's travelling around with this girl who turns out to be high all the time? In the beginning, I thought she was a narcoleptic or something, because her eyes just went to Xs all the time. They find this remnant of the last democratic effort, which they were apparently searching for? They go in, and are accosted by this guy who says he would have had sex with the girl immedietly, and was making fun of 'Once' for not doing so. 'Once', meanwhile, is apparently in love with her but too bashful to act on it.
So after this guy is a douche, 'Once' beats him up with his girlfriend cheering him on. Then he is caught by these guys who take him to the actual last politician who sentences him to jail, or something? Because the guy 'Once' was beating up is his nephew, who was doing good work repopulating the earth.
Oh! I think. Here's where all of those lines that are crossed are crossed! The idea of women's rights in a post apocalyptic society is scary, because obviously women would be walking wombs that serve no purpose but repopulating the human race. There's going to be some sort of forced repopulation going on, here!
Nope.
Eventually, 'Once's friends come, and he escapes. They take a girl from the compound with them, and eventually go and see a play put on by mutants? Also, there are cannibals with parts of their skulls showing who eat people, and eventually attack 'Once' and his friends.
Then 'Once' and four of his friends not including druggy girl set off on some random adventure. They find the Messiah! Then there's more adventuring, they wind up losing the rest of their group so it's only 'Once' and his new gf, then there is a mime and killer potatoes and that was the end of the film.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
I think that if we had established that Once, sorry, 'Once' was searching for some sort of base for them to build a new society in, the searching for the government would have made sense. Then if they had to search for food, or something? I don't know, it was dumb.
After that, there was a concert, but we had to catch the subway once we got back into Toronto, so we decided to leave.
Saturday.
The next day the films didn't start until 1PM, so we decided to get to Mellow's by 10AM so we could get there early. When we got there, we had difficulty crossing the street because it was the Santa Claus Parade... But eventually we got across to a Sushi place. It was pretty good, and I got some free miso soup and tempura that others couldn't finish. Score!
Then we went to the first film, called FIMFARUM 3. It's from the Czech Republic, and took fours years to make. It's stop motion, with three different stories and three different styles. I think my favourite was the last one, though I liked them all. The character designs were strongest in the first and last, but I did like in the first two how it was almost like the characters were textured with pencil crayons.
This is the trailer for the first segment:
In which they are searching for Yetis! They hear that they live up in the hills, so a celebrated reporter guy goes up there to find them by interviewing the locals. And by that, I mean drinking in a pub. I loved the song that they used What do you do with a drunken sailor as their song.
This is the trailer for the second:
This is more of a traditional fairy tale, with three brothers. The King is feeling down, so he asks for his two eldest to come to him. He tells them that he will exchange his crown for a cap with a jolly jay feather in it that he used to have, when he was travelling. He forgot it in a pub, because he was so interested in what was over that next hill, behind that sea, or around the corner. Now he knows all that, and just wants his hat back.
So his first son, Speedy, buys a super fast car. His second son, Strongman, makes a combination digger/bulldozer. And Jack, his third son, stays home. His first two sons fail, and Jack is left to achieve through careful recycling.
And then, just like a fairy tale, it has a strange nonsensical twist with Jack. Which is actually the bit that I really enjoyed! I love that they didn't try to make sense of it. I didn't like the character designs so much, it felt like they were made of wax and melted slightly. I *did* love how some elements that they interacted with were actually just flat paper. For instance, there were flowers that were changed in the King's throne room to show the passage of time, and they were just crayon drawings on flat pieces of paper. It was a very neat idea!
This is the trailer for the third segment:
This is a debate between Reason and Luck, which you can see in this segment:
they meet on a bridge, and neither will give way. To prove which is more important, they decide to make something of a passing pig boy. Reason jumps into his head, and the pig boy decides to leave his father and their farm to be a gardener at the royal palace. There, thanks to Reason giving him a mental cheat sheet, he is quickly able to become the Master gardener.
Eventually he falls for the princess, who he can marry if he can teach her to speak.
And things continue from there, I don't want to give it all away.
The character designs felt very Tim Burton to me, but in a good way. The animation was really, really good, and also included crowd scenes. No *wonder* this film took four years instead of the four months it was supposed to! Apparently this segment was made by two girls, entirely. INSANE.
This is the third in the series, so I hope I'll get to see the other two some day. And also buy them, because I want to give these people my money.
After that (just the first film, whewph!) we saw The Great Bear, from Denmark.
Trailer.
Jonathan is forced to have his sister come with him as he goes to annual visit with his grandfather, whose house is right at the edge of the great forest. The kids are told never to travel into the forest, because there is a Great Bear there who is a thousand years old and huge.
Of course, Jonathan is not pleased to have his little sister tagging along and wanting to play with him, so he winds up locking her outside of the yard in the great forest. And she, of course, is caught by the bear. Jonathan now has to go and find her, save her, and bring her back.
The story also involves a Bad Man, who is angry because his village built their homes on top of the great bear, who was hibernating. When the bear woke up, the village was destroyed and everyone moved away. Now the man is obsessed with killing the bear, so that the people who left will return. I figured they were going to go with either his wife and kid left as well, or his wife and kid were killed by the destruction of the village, so he had a motivation. That didn't happen, so that aspect of it was a little weak.
All in all, it was a pretty good movie. If it was playing in theatres, and my kids spoke Danish, I'd take them to it over Puss In Boots.
The ending scene was also a little ridiculous, but it was a fairy tale kind of story.
After that was the Princess and the Pilot.
I enjoyed this, even though it hit all of the expected points of a romantic anime story. marii_chan, A and I all groaned in the theatre at one part that was supposed to be touching and romantic, because it was OBVIOUSLY going to happen, but we were hoping it wouldn't.
The 3D and 2D were integrated quite well, I think. The planes were all 3D, obviously, but they fit pretty well. I think they might have been trying to give the lines a bit of a jitter in the closer scenes, which could have been a little bit more successful, but which did break up the 3D-ness a little.
There's something about single fighter planes that I do really love, which is why I love the concepts behind Tail Spin so much. One day I'd love to do something with a flying society, there's just something so cool in that.
After that we had smoothies at the Pho place. A had an avocado smoothie, while I had a soursop one. I think I liked the avocado one better! XD
Back to the theatre, for Chico Y Rita.
This film was neat. I'm not a huge fan of all the rotoscoping, I don't believe that it gives you a more 'realistic' movement... But for all that, it was definitely worth the watch. I really liked the backgrounds, all the colours were very cool. And the story was sad, but good.
The trailer doesn't quite represent what the film was all about... But I guess it's a good starting point. It was definitely interesting to see a different culture's take on love and relationships, because it was very... Latin American? Lots of heated passions.
It reminded me of one of my old housemates a *lot*.
After THAT we went for cake at the Symposium cafe. Another friend recommended the place, and we finally got a hold of her to tell us where it was. 'The Cake place' and 'waterloo' don't help much, J, when we're trying to go there!
It was good. Mellow and I split a piece of six layer carrot cake (which I still owe her for! Mental note.) that had cranberries in it. I like my carrot cake better, I think my icing is definitely better, but I am quite interested with this cranberry idea. Maybe next time I'll try that.
And then home! We didn't make the subways, and we couldn't figure out the night busses, so Mellow offered to drive us mostly home. That was probably the low point of the trip, I need to figure out the system so I'm not as worried about getting stranded. I wound up getting home after 2AM.
Sunday.
To make it to Mellow's place to make it to the first film, I was out the door by about ten after seven in the AM. Checked on the TTC website for how they'd want me to get there, and they said to catch a bus that went a heckuva way west, and then go all the way back east. Screw that! I thought, and just walked south to where the bus is. They were setting up here for the Santa Claus parade, so I was worried that the bus wouldn't get through. Murphy's law, you know!
Caught the bus, coincidentally the same one marii_chan was on. We got to Mellow's, and had to wait for A a little bit. Which means, of course, watching some Conan the Adventurer.
My favourite part is Conan's photobomb at the end. That is a horrible drawing!
Finally we all gathered, got to the theatre, and saw the first film of the day. Mellow was really wanting to go and see it, which was why we were all up so early.
Trailer, not safe for work. It's Adventures in Plymptoons, so it's a documentary about Bill Plympton, so obviously it's whatever his work is. U__U
I'm not a huuuuge fan of his work, the way that he sees the world and the way that I see the world don't quite jive. But I am happy that he is doing his work, because I think he enriches the entire animation community by presenting a differing voice, style, and techniques.
There's one critic in here who *has* to be edited to sound like a douche, or taken out of context, or something. He's basically saying that Bill Plympton should work in CG (twenty-first century, helloooo!) and do more disneyesque animation. I think everyone was rolling their eyes at that!
It was interesting to learn a little bit more about Bill Plympton, so if you're interested in his work at all, I'd recommend it. :D
The next film was cancelled due to being suddenly licensed in North America. In between, we went back to the Pho place, and I had the same dish again, with a Vietnamese coffee. Mmm.
The 1PM showing was up for audience vote, and unfortunately we couldn't see Leafy because it was on 35mm and it would have taken a while to set up. Our choices were Fim Farum, the Great Bear, the FMA movie, and one other. FMA won, unfortunately.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy FMA, but I would have rather watched the Czech film again. It's likely not going to be distributed over here, and I would have enjoyed being able to watch the animation closer.
The FMA movie was what one would expect an anime film to be. It obviously can't add anything to the story, so it has to be a stand alone. I did think the concept of a nation being forced into a huge valley interesting, and the animation was good. It was Bones, so obviously.
I didn't like the gradient they put on Ed's eyes. Maybe they're doing that in the new series? I haven't watched it yet.
Some of the things that happened were just silly too, but whatever.
The next film was Green Days, from South Korea.
No subtitles, but it's a girl's coming of age story. She wants to be noticed and remembered, and is drawn to her new too-cool-for-school friend, and also an unusual boy who wants to learn how to fly.
It was really nice to have two characters obviously liking each other, but not falling instantly in love. It was nice to see them be embarrassed around each other, and it was nice to see a relationship developing over time.
I would have enjoyed it more if my tailbone wasn't KILLING me the entire time, I think. One to check out, I enjoyed it.
Then we picked up D, and went back to Symposium. Where they had two for one cake on Sundays with the purchase of a beverage! YESSSSSS.
After that we went home, I chatted with my house mate for a little while, and then went to bed.
Good weekend!
Friday.
We had to be at Mellow's place for 4PM on Friday, so we could drive in for the first movie of the day at 6PM. Turns out we should have left the day before, or something, because traffic was amazingly bad. We wound up getting in at about seven thirty, so we completely missed Leafie, A Hen Into The Wild which is a kids film from Korea. It actually looks really neat, now that I see the trailer. Looks like it's 3D, but the way they've shaded it makes it look very 2D.
Click to viewTrailer! The designs are actually really neat.
Instead of watching this film, then, we sat in traffic and went for Pho at Pho Dau Bo just down from the theatre. It was really quite good, and we almost all enjoyed our meals. marii_chan got a pile of shredded something that was supposed to be shredded pork, but was really odd. I had vermicelli with a spring roll and also meatballs, which turned out to be flat, which I found pretty funny.
After, we trucked back to the theatre for the second film of the night, El Sol. The film apparently had quite a journey to get to the festival, involving pulling the package off of one courier's plane to go on another courier's plane, and figuring out just where in the world it ended up before finally having it delivered to Mississauga and then driven over to the theatre. It wound up being about an hour late, and was it ever worth it!
The trailer is here.
As you can see, I'm lying. Apparently this film was made for 13 thousand dollars by an illustrator and a bunch of his friends, but it should be the example that starts a new saying: Friends don't let friends come up with ideas high. And then make them with no editing at all. Sigh.
It showed (apparently) a post apocalyptic society, twenty years after the bomb fell. The first shots included a DBZ look alike character, and then someone who looked like Ash from Pokemon. And then there was some sort of thing to show the death of democracy and government, because the last politician was shot by a PETA activist for daring to say that we should eat animals to survive.
Then it 'follows' the adventures of 'Once'. Not Once, as in a character name, but 'Once'. I assume in Spanish his name as ApostropheOnceApostrophe, because that's how it was always written in the subtitles. He's travelling around with this girl who turns out to be high all the time? In the beginning, I thought she was a narcoleptic or something, because her eyes just went to Xs all the time. They find this remnant of the last democratic effort, which they were apparently searching for? They go in, and are accosted by this guy who says he would have had sex with the girl immedietly, and was making fun of 'Once' for not doing so. 'Once', meanwhile, is apparently in love with her but too bashful to act on it.
So after this guy is a douche, 'Once' beats him up with his girlfriend cheering him on. Then he is caught by these guys who take him to the actual last politician who sentences him to jail, or something? Because the guy 'Once' was beating up is his nephew, who was doing good work repopulating the earth.
Oh! I think. Here's where all of those lines that are crossed are crossed! The idea of women's rights in a post apocalyptic society is scary, because obviously women would be walking wombs that serve no purpose but repopulating the human race. There's going to be some sort of forced repopulation going on, here!
Nope.
Eventually, 'Once's friends come, and he escapes. They take a girl from the compound with them, and eventually go and see a play put on by mutants? Also, there are cannibals with parts of their skulls showing who eat people, and eventually attack 'Once' and his friends.
Then 'Once' and four of his friends not including druggy girl set off on some random adventure. They find the Messiah! Then there's more adventuring, they wind up losing the rest of their group so it's only 'Once' and his new gf, then there is a mime and killer potatoes and that was the end of the film.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
I think that if we had established that Once, sorry, 'Once' was searching for some sort of base for them to build a new society in, the searching for the government would have made sense. Then if they had to search for food, or something? I don't know, it was dumb.
After that, there was a concert, but we had to catch the subway once we got back into Toronto, so we decided to leave.
Saturday.
The next day the films didn't start until 1PM, so we decided to get to Mellow's by 10AM so we could get there early. When we got there, we had difficulty crossing the street because it was the Santa Claus Parade... But eventually we got across to a Sushi place. It was pretty good, and I got some free miso soup and tempura that others couldn't finish. Score!
Then we went to the first film, called FIMFARUM 3. It's from the Czech Republic, and took fours years to make. It's stop motion, with three different stories and three different styles. I think my favourite was the last one, though I liked them all. The character designs were strongest in the first and last, but I did like in the first two how it was almost like the characters were textured with pencil crayons.
This is the trailer for the first segment:
In which they are searching for Yetis! They hear that they live up in the hills, so a celebrated reporter guy goes up there to find them by interviewing the locals. And by that, I mean drinking in a pub. I loved the song that they used What do you do with a drunken sailor as their song.
This is the trailer for the second:
This is more of a traditional fairy tale, with three brothers. The King is feeling down, so he asks for his two eldest to come to him. He tells them that he will exchange his crown for a cap with a jolly jay feather in it that he used to have, when he was travelling. He forgot it in a pub, because he was so interested in what was over that next hill, behind that sea, or around the corner. Now he knows all that, and just wants his hat back.
So his first son, Speedy, buys a super fast car. His second son, Strongman, makes a combination digger/bulldozer. And Jack, his third son, stays home. His first two sons fail, and Jack is left to achieve through careful recycling.
And then, just like a fairy tale, it has a strange nonsensical twist with Jack. Which is actually the bit that I really enjoyed! I love that they didn't try to make sense of it. I didn't like the character designs so much, it felt like they were made of wax and melted slightly. I *did* love how some elements that they interacted with were actually just flat paper. For instance, there were flowers that were changed in the King's throne room to show the passage of time, and they were just crayon drawings on flat pieces of paper. It was a very neat idea!
This is the trailer for the third segment:
This is a debate between Reason and Luck, which you can see in this segment:
they meet on a bridge, and neither will give way. To prove which is more important, they decide to make something of a passing pig boy. Reason jumps into his head, and the pig boy decides to leave his father and their farm to be a gardener at the royal palace. There, thanks to Reason giving him a mental cheat sheet, he is quickly able to become the Master gardener.
Eventually he falls for the princess, who he can marry if he can teach her to speak.
And things continue from there, I don't want to give it all away.
The character designs felt very Tim Burton to me, but in a good way. The animation was really, really good, and also included crowd scenes. No *wonder* this film took four years instead of the four months it was supposed to! Apparently this segment was made by two girls, entirely. INSANE.
This is the third in the series, so I hope I'll get to see the other two some day. And also buy them, because I want to give these people my money.
After that (just the first film, whewph!) we saw The Great Bear, from Denmark.
Trailer.
Jonathan is forced to have his sister come with him as he goes to annual visit with his grandfather, whose house is right at the edge of the great forest. The kids are told never to travel into the forest, because there is a Great Bear there who is a thousand years old and huge.
Of course, Jonathan is not pleased to have his little sister tagging along and wanting to play with him, so he winds up locking her outside of the yard in the great forest. And she, of course, is caught by the bear. Jonathan now has to go and find her, save her, and bring her back.
The story also involves a Bad Man, who is angry because his village built their homes on top of the great bear, who was hibernating. When the bear woke up, the village was destroyed and everyone moved away. Now the man is obsessed with killing the bear, so that the people who left will return. I figured they were going to go with either his wife and kid left as well, or his wife and kid were killed by the destruction of the village, so he had a motivation. That didn't happen, so that aspect of it was a little weak.
All in all, it was a pretty good movie. If it was playing in theatres, and my kids spoke Danish, I'd take them to it over Puss In Boots.
The ending scene was also a little ridiculous, but it was a fairy tale kind of story.
After that was the Princess and the Pilot.
I enjoyed this, even though it hit all of the expected points of a romantic anime story. marii_chan, A and I all groaned in the theatre at one part that was supposed to be touching and romantic, because it was OBVIOUSLY going to happen, but we were hoping it wouldn't.
The 3D and 2D were integrated quite well, I think. The planes were all 3D, obviously, but they fit pretty well. I think they might have been trying to give the lines a bit of a jitter in the closer scenes, which could have been a little bit more successful, but which did break up the 3D-ness a little.
There's something about single fighter planes that I do really love, which is why I love the concepts behind Tail Spin so much. One day I'd love to do something with a flying society, there's just something so cool in that.
After that we had smoothies at the Pho place. A had an avocado smoothie, while I had a soursop one. I think I liked the avocado one better! XD
Back to the theatre, for Chico Y Rita.
This film was neat. I'm not a huge fan of all the rotoscoping, I don't believe that it gives you a more 'realistic' movement... But for all that, it was definitely worth the watch. I really liked the backgrounds, all the colours were very cool. And the story was sad, but good.
The trailer doesn't quite represent what the film was all about... But I guess it's a good starting point. It was definitely interesting to see a different culture's take on love and relationships, because it was very... Latin American? Lots of heated passions.
It reminded me of one of my old housemates a *lot*.
After THAT we went for cake at the Symposium cafe. Another friend recommended the place, and we finally got a hold of her to tell us where it was. 'The Cake place' and 'waterloo' don't help much, J, when we're trying to go there!
It was good. Mellow and I split a piece of six layer carrot cake (which I still owe her for! Mental note.) that had cranberries in it. I like my carrot cake better, I think my icing is definitely better, but I am quite interested with this cranberry idea. Maybe next time I'll try that.
And then home! We didn't make the subways, and we couldn't figure out the night busses, so Mellow offered to drive us mostly home. That was probably the low point of the trip, I need to figure out the system so I'm not as worried about getting stranded. I wound up getting home after 2AM.
Sunday.
To make it to Mellow's place to make it to the first film, I was out the door by about ten after seven in the AM. Checked on the TTC website for how they'd want me to get there, and they said to catch a bus that went a heckuva way west, and then go all the way back east. Screw that! I thought, and just walked south to where the bus is. They were setting up here for the Santa Claus parade, so I was worried that the bus wouldn't get through. Murphy's law, you know!
Caught the bus, coincidentally the same one marii_chan was on. We got to Mellow's, and had to wait for A a little bit. Which means, of course, watching some Conan the Adventurer.
My favourite part is Conan's photobomb at the end. That is a horrible drawing!
Finally we all gathered, got to the theatre, and saw the first film of the day. Mellow was really wanting to go and see it, which was why we were all up so early.
Trailer, not safe for work. It's Adventures in Plymptoons, so it's a documentary about Bill Plympton, so obviously it's whatever his work is. U__U
I'm not a huuuuge fan of his work, the way that he sees the world and the way that I see the world don't quite jive. But I am happy that he is doing his work, because I think he enriches the entire animation community by presenting a differing voice, style, and techniques.
There's one critic in here who *has* to be edited to sound like a douche, or taken out of context, or something. He's basically saying that Bill Plympton should work in CG (twenty-first century, helloooo!) and do more disneyesque animation. I think everyone was rolling their eyes at that!
It was interesting to learn a little bit more about Bill Plympton, so if you're interested in his work at all, I'd recommend it. :D
The next film was cancelled due to being suddenly licensed in North America. In between, we went back to the Pho place, and I had the same dish again, with a Vietnamese coffee. Mmm.
The 1PM showing was up for audience vote, and unfortunately we couldn't see Leafy because it was on 35mm and it would have taken a while to set up. Our choices were Fim Farum, the Great Bear, the FMA movie, and one other. FMA won, unfortunately.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy FMA, but I would have rather watched the Czech film again. It's likely not going to be distributed over here, and I would have enjoyed being able to watch the animation closer.
The FMA movie was what one would expect an anime film to be. It obviously can't add anything to the story, so it has to be a stand alone. I did think the concept of a nation being forced into a huge valley interesting, and the animation was good. It was Bones, so obviously.
I didn't like the gradient they put on Ed's eyes. Maybe they're doing that in the new series? I haven't watched it yet.
Some of the things that happened were just silly too, but whatever.
The next film was Green Days, from South Korea.
No subtitles, but it's a girl's coming of age story. She wants to be noticed and remembered, and is drawn to her new too-cool-for-school friend, and also an unusual boy who wants to learn how to fly.
It was really nice to have two characters obviously liking each other, but not falling instantly in love. It was nice to see them be embarrassed around each other, and it was nice to see a relationship developing over time.
I would have enjoyed it more if my tailbone wasn't KILLING me the entire time, I think. One to check out, I enjoyed it.
Then we picked up D, and went back to Symposium. Where they had two for one cake on Sundays with the purchase of a beverage! YESSSSSS.
After that we went home, I chatted with my house mate for a little while, and then went to bed.
Good weekend!